PIANO THEATRE

Music in Motion. Motion as Music. Music as Motion

The theater has been open since 1986 at the Nizhny Novgorod boarding school for deaf children. Kids and teenagers bereft of the ability to hear learn the art of stage, pantomime, clownery and the techniques of dance improvisation and composition.

The organization's main task is to provide the conditions in which deaf talented children have the opportunity of full-blooded creativity ON  EQUAL TERMS and TOGETHER with well hearing children of their age. For this aim the special programme was developed. It includes the joint education of hearing handicapped children together with well hearing children and also the participation of the theatre in theatre and educational projects, festivals, competitions, summer campuses etc. Where people with limited abilities (as they are usually taken for) are not distinguished especially from participants and spectators, where communication is going-on on equal terms and at a creative level.

We support gifted deaf children and adolescents and try to help them find in their own incapacity the source of strength. No wonders of medicine can restore their hearing ability today, but we have a power to take them to the marvelous world of creativity and help them learn the magical language of art - a language that everybody understands irrespective of age, nationality and medical diagnoses. It just takes us trust and attention to find for each child a way of artistic expression that the world can perceive. For actors this is the language of free movements of an uninhibited and harmoniously developed human body. Our actors "sing" the music with their bodies using the techniques of improvisation, the art of pantomime and acrobatics, and the expressiveness of stage play.

In the repertoire of the “PIANO” theatre-school there are the original performances the dramatic composition of which is built up with actors improvisation.

Pantomime as an ancient art coalesces the visual, aural, descriptive and philosophical perception of the world at the same time.

Theatre PIANO it is a school that offers a unique technology for pantomimic improvisation involving the art of graphics, sculpture and all poetic and literary forms, and utilizing other meaning-bearing vehicles such as sound, light, color, voice, etc. The techniques of plastic improvisation and the ease of creative dancing are used as both a means of teaching and a stage ploy, as well as a therapeutic method.

During nearly 20 years theatre PIANO company has  participated in more than 30 international theatre and educational projects, festivals and actions  in the 11 countres (Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, USA, Finland, Luxemburg, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Czechia, Turkey), including:

- World Congress of deaf people "DEAF WAY II"  An international festival celebrating deaf culture

- Washington DC (USA)2002. During the Congress actors of the Piano theatre played performances on the stage of internationally known KENNEDY_CENTER. The video of this performance >>

- MUTHEN - International Theatre Festival - Lucerne (Switzerland) 1999.

- IV World AITA Festival of Children Theaters - Copenhagen (Denmark)1996.

- THEATRE IN SIGN - International Theatre Festival - Newtown (Great Britain)1993.

- II World AITA Festival of Childrens Theaters - Antalia (Turkey)1992.

- X International Mime festival of the deaf - Brno (Czechia)1988.

The full list of projects

The pedagogues of theatre PIANO are also a writer specializing in drama pedagogy, with years of experience in conducting workshops for a variety of audiences,(including children an adults, professional actors and directors, drama-teachers, art-therapists, psychologists, physically impaired people,etc) on the international festivals, conference, kulture projects, including:

- 3rd International FESTIVAL OF SENSES 2004 (Theatre festival for young people with and without disabilities and Symposium for artists and pedagogues (Lingen, Germany)2004

- "SPURENSUSCHE -  7" ASSITEJ International Theatre Festival  - Freiburg (Германия, 2004).

- "PIANO IS THEATRE OF SILENCE" - Culture  project in cooperation with the Theatre Pedagogical Centre TPZ- Lingen (Germany) 2003-2004.

- Culture  project in cooperation with the Theatre Pedagogical Centre  CAPEL - Luxemburg 2002.

- CHILDREN PLAY THEATRE - Federal educational project of Theatre Academy Remscheid (Germany)2002.

- STAGE 2000 - International Theatre Festival Project - Turku (Finland) 2000.

- KONTAKT 99 -  International Theatre Festival - Veimar - Kulture Capital of Europe 1999(Germany)

- GREENZENLOS - International Theatre Festival - Mainz (Germany) 1997.

- International Theatre Festival - Kuusankosky (Finland) 1997.

- Cultural project in cooperation with the Rusian-German Welcome Society - Essen, Dusseldorf, Berlin (Germany) 1996.

- World AITA Festival of Childrens Theaters - TPZ  Lingen (Germany)1994,1998,2002.2006

- The BRIDGE TO SILENCE project (2005) aims at the promotion of the idea of tolerance in society. This project is supported by the Nizhny Novgorod Partnership Community Foundation under a Partnership Program between the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.

Theatre PIANO a laureate of a Jeremy Jacka Memorial Foundation" prize for unselfish service to people and as a token of the acknowledgement of a considerable contribution to charity promotion in Russia, 2005. (British Charities Aid Foundation).

Artistic director of the Piano Theater

Honored Worker of Culture of Russia - Vladimir Chikishev

Artist and stage manager - Marina Chikisheva

Pantomime pedagogues - Danil Chikishev, Evgeny Valuev

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